Orson Welles rarities in San Francisco Jan. 17-18, 2009

[RayKelly]

From the 12/26/08 San Francisco Chronicle http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/12/26/DDIP14CTQ0.DTL&type=art

Two programs of rarities by Orson Welles will be shown Jan. 17 and 18 at Berkeley's Pacific Film Archive. The event is co-presented with the Goethe-Institut San Francisco.

The Jan. 17 program includes footage Welles shot for TV shows such as "Around the World With Orson Welles" and "Orson's Bag." The material focuses on the director's visits to Paris, London, Vienna and other European locations. Also on the program, according to the archive, is material showing "different approaches by Welles to Shakespeare's 'Merchant of Venice.' "

On Jan. 18, the subject will be Welles' unfinished works, with excerpts from "The Deep" (based on a Charles Williams thriller), "The Dreamers" (from stories by Isak Dinesen) and "Don Quixote."

The programs will be presented by Stefan Drössler, director of the Munich Filmmuseum. The archive says Drössler, working with Welles' companion Oja Kodar, has assembled the world's largest collection of Welles rarities.

The events begin at 5 p.m. Jan. 17 and 2 p.m. Jan. 18. The Pacific Film Archive is at 2575 Bancroft Way in Berkeley. For information on advance tickets, call (510) 642-5249. For general archive information, call (510) 642-1412 or go to bampfa.berkeley.edu

[Alan Brody]

Did anybody go to this?

[ToddBaesen]

What I found most interesting out of all the unfinished material Stefan Drossler showed at the PFA last week, was THE DREAMERS "test footage," which included basically everything Welles shot on the project. I think what also helped so much, was that of all the material shown, this footage was in such pristine condition. There were no scratches, blemishes, color problems, etc. that mar so much of the other unfinished Welles footage.

There was also a second alternate version of Pellegrina's farewell scene with Marcus Kleek. The first farewell scene is the one that is more well known, shot in the garden of Welles house in Hollywood.

The second one shows us Pellegrina inside of the house talking to Marcus Kleek, but in typical fashion, Welles designed this scene as a series of alternating shots between Kleek and Pellegrina, so the two are never seen on screen at the same time together. Unfortunately, Welles never shot the reverse shots of himself, so we never see him, but only hear the lines he recorded for his scenes, shown against black leader, as Kleek is talking to Pellegrina. One suggestion that might improve this segment, would be to insert a still shot of Welles as Marcus Kleek into the scenes, instead of simply having audiences look at a lot of black leader. Luckily, the scenes of Oja Kodar as Pellegrina are in ravishing color, and also have a simple but rather astonishing art direction to them, which was obviously done by Welles himself. There is a very elegant 19th Century feel to the footage, with several beautiful candlelit lighting effects highlighting the scenes.

One can only imagine how Welles would have handled the opening of his script, once again set on a boat, this time off the coast of east Africa, where we are introduced to three men, lit by the light from a full moon...


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ISAK DINESEN'S

THE DREAMERS

adapted for the screen by ORSON WELLES (1978)

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O.W. as NARRATOR:
On a full moon night in 1870, a dhow was on its way to Zanzibar...


FADE IN:

EXT. - THE DHOW UNDER SAIL

A small lantern is hung up over the deck. Three persons are grouped under it.

O.W. as NARRATOR:
Her freight was ivory and rhino horn. But the ship held also a secret human cargo --

As'id Ben Ahamed, the young Arab chieftan, was about to stir and raise great forces of which the slumbering world did not yet dream...


SA'ID, a fierce and strongly beautiful young hero of his people, sits on the deck cross-legged, bent forward, his hands loosely folded and resting on the planks before him.

O.W. as NARRATOR:
Through treachery, he had been made a prisoner in the North: he was now on his way to take revenge upon his enemies.

With him there was a person once of great renown: the storyteller, Mira Jamal.


MIRA sits, like SA'ID, with his legs crossed. His back is to the moon, but the night is clear enough to show that he is dressed in rags.



O.W. as NARRATOR:
The third in the company was the young Englishman, Lincoln Forsner.


LINCOLN lies flat on his stomach on the deck. He wears an Arab shirt and Indian trousers.

They sail for a time.

Then LINCOLN changes his position: he sits up and makes himself comfortable.

LINCOLN:
The night is very still... bewildering in its silence and its peace. It is as if something had happened to the soul of the world... As if some magic... turned it upside-down.

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[Alan Brody]

Thanks for the info, Todd. I'm thinking of that guy who put an extended amount of Dreamers footage on Youtube last year, along with alot of other great stuff, and then took it all off about a week later. Too bad the guy apparently got cold feet. I didn't even get a chance to watch all the stuff he had put on.